“It was the original,” Soilléir said, “and not anything I was particularly interested in at the time, truth be told.”
“Don’t you people ever make copies of anything?” Acair said incredulously.
“The library is unbreachable,” Soilléir said.
“Apparently not,” Acair returned with a snort. “What did this spell do?”
“It’s a spell of theft.”
Acair rolled his eyes. “Pedestrian.”
“It steals souls.”
Acair was honestly rather grateful he hadn’t been sipping anything because he would have likely put the fire out with his spewing. He grasped frantically for his last shreds of good sense. He was never afraid. He had walked in places that would have turned that prissy essence changer perched on that sturdy log over there white with terror, yet he himself had hardly raised an eyebrow.
He wasn’t sure if that ice-cold hand that had taken hold of his innards was fear or the coldest of angers.
He settled for the latter, because the former was just too terrible to contemplate.
“Get out of my sight,” he said with a haughtiness that hefeared wasn’t nearly chilly enough for present circumstances. “Sending me off to do your dirty work? Disgusting.”
“I think you’ve seen the spell before,” Soilléir said quietly.
“Bah, what absolute rot,” Acair said dismissively.
“I believe you threw it into a fire quite a few years ago.”
Léirsinn squeaked. Acair understood and he wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t made the same sort of noise right along with her. He rose unsteadily and paced, because that seemed like the most intelligent thing he’d done all day. He finally stopped behind Léirsinn and put his hands on her shoulders. To steadyher, of course, not himself.
“How do you knowthat?” Acair wheezed. “Ye gads, man, do you have any idea what you’re saying?”
Soilléir only looked at him steadily. “Aye, I do, and the answer to the first is that I did some investigating.”
“Have you been spying on me my entire life?” Acair asked, thoroughly appalled by the notion.
“You were such trouble from the start that I likely should have,” Soilléir said with a faint smile, “but nay, I haven’t. If you must know, there was something surrounding that moment all those many years ago that drew my attention in a way few things have. You know I don’t like to interfere—”
“Bollocks!” Acair shouted. He took a deep breath. “I honestly don’t know how you live inside yourself.”
“Centuries of practice,” Soilléir said with a shrug.
Acair swore, because it seemed preferable to shouting. “Who stole that spell from your grandfather?”
“We’re not certain.”
Acair supposed he might hazard a decent guess. He considered the mage sitting across from him and decided there was no use in not asking a few questions whilst he had the chance.
“Have you ever heard the name Sladaiche?”
Soilléir looked as if he’d just been clouted in the nose. He pulled back, then looked at Acair with something that on another’s face might have been called surprise.
“I haven’t heard that name in years,” he said carefully.
“But you’ve heard it before,” Acair pressed.
Soilléir considered. “It cannot be the same man. That one was... nay, it can’t be the same mage.”
Acair crawled over the fallen tree and sat next to Léirsinn. “Perhaps you should let me decide that.”
